Research Projects

Largely I am interested in understanding how plants are able to adapt to a changing and/or stressful environment. To understand this I a use a variety of genetic tools to help understand both the mechanisms and the evolutionary potential of adaptive traits. I have used techniques of breeding, quantitative genetics, statistical genetics, genomics, and genome mapping. Some projects include: examining the evolutionary potential of weediness using an agricultural weed, the common morning glory as a model, looking at structural variation in the cotton genome, another is looking at adaptive genetics in sagebrush, and I am also creating a genome map of Aspen.